Hungry for More: Romantic Fantasies for Women - just published! With stories by Tiffany Reisz, Greta Christina, D.L. King and more. 21 fantasies, from "Kitchen Slut" to a cougar to Craigslist sex to BDSM to bukkake to watching two men get it on, and more!

Thanks to Gawker, I get to keep reading about how everyonehearsback from Village Voice Tony Ortega. I guess two-plus years of writing a column without ever taking a vacation means...nothing, but I already knew that, right? Glad to know that everyone else in the world gets a response. Whatever. I emailed him soon after he became editor with the note below, then, not hearing back, snail mailed two sample columns, one of which is below. The other was called "Bare Hipster Breasts" and had interviews with Bronques of Lastnightsparty.com and Richard Blakeley of Fleshbot as well as Lux Nightmare and others. That one I will try to pitch around. I guess the topic of "No Regrets" is applicable here too. Someday I still hope to publish a book of my Voice columns, but for now, the world is clearly telling me that fiction is where I need to focus.

Dear Mr. Ortega:

I'm writing to introduce myself. My name is Rachel Kramer Bussel and I wrote the Lusty Lady sex column for the Voice(http://www.villagevoice.com/home/index.php?page=columnpage&column=Lusty%20Lady) from October 2004 through January 2007, when David Blum replaced my column with the Married, Not Dead column. You probably already haveplans for the sex column position, but I wanted to see if it would be possible to schedule a meeting to discuss the possibility of either writing that column or another kind of sex column for the Voice again, as it was a position I greatly enjoyed and believe I had a large audience of steady readers.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Rachel Kramer Bussel

Hed: No Regrets

Dek: Even bad sex can be a good learning experience

“Abstinence is my choice . . . because I don’t want to have any regrets,” reads a poster on Ichoosemyfuture.com, a site sponsored by the New Mexico Department of Health to promote teen abstinence. Other reasons for making this choice (and do note the cooptation of the word “choice” from a site geared toward pushing not independent thinking, but one true way) include “Because I don’t want warts” (like I do?) and “Because my little sister looks up to me.”

The first answer brought up issues for me far beyond the ins and outs of modern sex education. None of us set out to have regrets, sexual or otherwise, but if we were to truly live a life of no regrets, not only would our daily existence be incredibly boring, it would mean we’d have no room to grow into our true sexual selves. In every other area of our lives we’re encouraged to find things out by trial and error, but sex, above even drugs, is supposed to be so sacred that we should strive never to make a mistake. That’s ridiculous. How else would I know how I feel about ice cubes up my ass (yea) or having my feet tickled while in bondage (nay)?

I would love to be able to tell you that I have no sexual regrets, that in my many years of fucking around, everything’s been fun and hot and enjoyable, but if I did, I’d be lying. I’ve had weird sex, awkward sex, uncomfortable sex and confusing sex. I’ve had sex to feel less lonely, to make a person like me, and because I felt I owed it to someone after they’d bought me dinner. I’ve slept with people only to discover how incompatible we really were: the guy who refused to go down on me after I’d done the same, the one who wouldn’t shut up about baseball only moments after he came, the girl who made me feel so nervous and inexperienced I couldn’t even tell her what I wanted, the guy who banished all talking⎯even saying his name⎯in bed. I brought a guy back to my dorm room once who desperately wanted his nipples clamped. I’d bought tweezer clamps, thinking they’d be used on me, but was intrigued enough to slide the silver tongs over his erect buds, only to find myself too squeamish to continue. Back then, I wasn’t quite the sadistic chick I am today. I felt stupid, though, like I’d lured him home under false pretenses, but I also learned that being a mean girl, at least at that point in my life, was a no-no.

It’s easy to look back on bad relationships and say, “Well, life would’ve been so much easier if I hadn’t slept with them.” Sure, but how are we to know this in advance? I’ve beaten myself up countless times over a guy I dated last year who I envisioned myself having babies with. As it turned out, he was more interested in hiring hookers off Craigslist than having a relationship with me. “I should’ve seen the signs, I shouldn’t have fallen so hard, why am I such an idiot?” are just the mildest versions of my self-flagellation. Those are probably natural thoughts to have in my situation, but can I truly say I regret starting up with him? No, because while we were together, I was blissfully happy. It’s tempting to forget about the hot sex, but we had that too before things went sour.

Sex can be a learning experience, and to expect every time to be perfect is to give sex too much power over us. Sex is messy, both physically and emotionally. It changes us, for better or worse, just as changes in our circumstances affect what we want out of sex. What turned us on when we were 20 may be very different from what us you on at 40, or 60. Does this mean we must regret what went before? It'd be easy to disavow our past sexual lives, but the same could be said for anything we did in the past. I no more want to fuck like I did at 18 than dress like I did at 18.

Abstinence is a valid choice for many, but it shouldn't be treated as the one and only answer. There’s value, too, in fumbling, stumbling, doing something that might embarrass you later, or might rock your world. Chances are, good sex and feeling comfortable being naked with another person will take time. Knowing what your kinks (and your turn-offs) are is an important part of your sexual self-awareness, but hard to assess in advance. That image of you getting tied up and fucked by some anonymous stud may not be so hot in real life⎯or maybe it’ll be more explosive than you could’ve imagined. I’m not suggesting you run out and act on every sexual whim you’ve ever had, but I’d rather live with a few regrets than think wistfully about who I might have fucked, if only I’d been bold enough.

I’ve made tactical errors when it comes to sex, misjudging lovers⎯and myself. I’ve been lax about using condoms simply because my boyfriend was so persistent in his disdain for them and I wanted to trust and please him. I’ve ditched late-night deadlines in favor of booty calls only to be dropped like a hot potato when the situation was reversed. I’ve assumed a level of commitment that simply wasn’t there, only to find myself miserable when the object of my affection suddenly stopped calling. I’ve read and reread ex’s emails searching for clues about what I could’ve done better. I’ve felt self-conscious when my orgasms took too long⎯or didn’t come at all. But for every erotic moment I feel regret or embarrassment or anger or sadness over, at the end of the day, they make me who I am. Unlike some of my sex column writing peers, I’m not an expert in anything but sluttiness (and I say that with infinite fondness for that particular epithet). More often than not, I don’t know what I’m doing and feel completely uncertain about what my lovers are thinking about me⎯and that’s okay.

Women and girls, especially, are taught that sex is of such paramount importance that one misstep can send us down a path of doom, forever marked as bad girls and sluts. This either/or thinking only serves to shame those who wind up going all the way, when they’d planned on remaining “pure,” making them think that any instance of sexual impropriety dooms them completely. The big myth we hype with the allure of abstinence is that when we finally find “the one,” sex will be so perfect it’ll make us forget about the frustration of holding out. There are plenty of good reasons to put off sex, and for some people, that might work, but promising that waiting until marriage will mean no regrets is foolish. Imagine if we applied this policy to other areas of our lives: Would we ever get in planes, bungee jump, or take any kind of life-changing risks? You can play it safe, sure, but then you’re also missing out on the sexual shock and awe you might unlock inside yourself.

Along with my sexual regrets are many more sexual memories I treasure dearly. The threesome in San Francisco where a woman fucked me in the ass with a dildo while I had sex with her husband. Beating my girlfriend’s ass with a belt at a sex party, knowing she’d proudly show off the marks I’d left. Letting someone I barely knew slap me across the face⎯and liking it. Realizing the depths of my own kinkiness and rock bottom sexual needs feels like part of growing up to me, like learning to balance my checkbook (still working on that one) and cook a decent dinner (that too). I hope sex is always a learning process for me; I never want to feel like I’m so “been there, done that” about it that there’s nothing new to discover or enjoy. By that I don’t mean new lovers per se, but new feelings, new perspectives. In so many ways, sex is a high risk, high reward activity. I have some regrets, but I wouldn’t trade them in even if I could.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Inspred by Marcy Sheiner's posting of a part of her story "Michelle, Ma Belle," from Crossdressing: Erotic Stories, here's a bit of hers and some of the others. Thanks to Charlie Anders, author of The Lacy Crossdresser and host of Writers With Drinks, for telling me about Marcy's story in the first place! We'll have some reviews and interviews soon as well. I'm really proud of both the diversity and hotness in this book, and don't think either should be lacking at the expense of the other.

"Michelle, Ma Belle"by Marcy Sheiner

Many years ago, before I knew what a transvestite was–I had a vague notion it had something to do with a sex change–and before I’d explored the far reaches of genderbending, I inadvertently stumbled into a relationship with a cross-dressing man.

Michael and I had been going out for several months, and had become fairly open about our sexual fantasies. But it took nearly a year before he revealed his biggest secret–the contents of his bottom dresser drawer. He was terrified of being ridiculed, but my reaction was mostly jealousy: I fairly drooled over his collection of expensive camisoles, garter belts, pushup bras and lacy stockings. Relieved, he told me that for years he’d been dressing up in secret, sometimes calling a phone sex service to describe his outfits, asking the operator to treat him like a woman.

This was fascinating stuff to me. Since I’m bisexual, the notion of my man dressed as a woman excited me. But it turned out that, though Michael had all the right accoutrements of femininity, he was a total klutz when it came to hair and makeup. He wanted me to teach him how to look ultra-femme...

Rory opened his eyes. For a second he just stared, eyes darting from my face to my breasts to the erection I still tugged between my legs.

“Oh, girl,” he breathed. “You’re so fine.”

Oh, girl. The words ran through me in an electric current. I squeezed myself, my cockhead surging in a sweet throb on top of my delicate fist. Rory unzipped, clumsy with want, fumbled with his shirt and sent a button sailing. It rolled in a spiral on the ugly burgundy carpet. Then he gathered me up and swept me down to that carpet, too.

He was vast, dark, undulating, a powerful wave of a man. I was the red sunset dancing on his surface. On the club floor between the tables, I lapped at his chest and sucked hard on his nipples, feeling his low, hungry sounds vibrate against my lips. He touched me with a rough, working man’s awe, as if he were afraid he might break something.

“It’s my real hair,” I said. “You can pull on it.”

Emboldened, he wrapped the silky length around his fist, tight enough to make my scalp burn. But it wasn’t pain--as soon as he stepped into a wide-legged stance in front of my mouth.

“Just Like a Boy” by Debra Hyde

The doorbell sounded and I met Matthias at the door, bringing my confusion with me. When he saw me, a “this is perfect” smile washed across his face. He was pleased with what he saw and he wasted no time in showing me. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and planted a rough kiss on me. He pried my teeth apart with his tongue and devoured me. His free hand went right for my crotch and grabbed what little he found there. He rubbed his hand up and down my little bulge.

I should’ve blushed at first touch, but before I could react, Matthias moaned with such lust that his response stunned me. He was getting off on the prick in my pants! I mean, I was prepared for being a faggot boy, but somehow I’d failed to realize that the man who loved cunt--my cunt--would be queer too by virtue of getting hard over my dick.

But hey, what worked for him worked for me, and I humped Matthias’s hand with my boy cock as thoughts of a rampaging ass fuck raced in my head.

Matthias pulled away from me and laughed. “Forget that, kid,” he said as he dragged me by the neck over my hall staircase. “Kneel,” he ordered. As I did, he sat on the stairs, planting himself so his crotch was mouth-level to me.

“Halloween” by Helen Boyd

Laura and Sally were getting completely carried away, not taking any of it too seriously but things were getting a little crazy. Sally had stepped out of her jeans, let her sock fall, and stood in nothing but a pair of white boy-cut panties. She was the classic tomboy, small-breasted but blonde, pretty but athletic. And Laura of course felt like the girliest of girls now, with her cleavage heaving and high heels and the luxurious satin on her legs. Sally jokingly grabbed Laura’s ass the next time she kissed her. It was all so dumb and theatrical but the boys on the couch were actually getting turned on by it, which made the girls laugh harder and harder and act more and more outrageously. “You want a little bit of this?” Sally asked James and turned Laura around, bending her at the waist. Suddenly it wasn’t so funny to Laura, as she felt herself get incredibly wet nearly instantaneously. To have Robert look at her that way was something she desired so much, and knowing James would take the lead would maybe free Robert up to be more obvious about his desires. Besides, James still had those damned gloves on.

It was only natural for Sally to spank her nextæhow could she not?--and the heat she felt on her ass turned her on even more. She wasn’t wearing panties--she had gone without to surprise Robert at the end of the night--and instead she was surprising herself.

“More Than Meets the Eye” by Stephen Albrow

My suit is by Giorgio Armani, but my underwear is by Victoria’s Secret. The boss wants me to play hardball today, to be at my most masculine, so I need something soft and sensuous against my skin, to keep me in touch with the real me, with Suzy. I spent two hours in the shower this morning, shaving every last trace of hair from my body, while going through the numbers in my head. The boss wants to secure the takeover deal for 2.5 million at the most, but I reckon I can snare them for 1.75, if I push hard enough. Yeah, I’ve got to be a tough guy today--at least, on the outside. Today I’ll be a tough guy in white satin bra and panties, with matching garter belt and tan-colored stockings. (Fully-fashioned, naturally!)

I blend in with the boardroom easily enough, with its ultra-masculine oak-paneled walls and high-back leather chairs. There are ten of us seated round the negotiating table, five of them and five of us. We’re all wearing matching charcoal-grey suits, cos that’s what the well-dressed man is wearing this year. Only one person in the room breaks the dull grey monotonyæthe power-dressed lady sitting directly to my right. She crosses her legs, which makes her skirt ride up and reveal several inches of stocking-clad thigh. Her stockings are the same shade of tan as mine, but hers aren’t fully-fashioned. She’s on their side and she talks quite a lot. Her and my boss make all the introductions, while I wait patiently for my moment--the moment when the number-crunching begins.

“Tough Enough to Wear a Dress” by Teresa Noelle Roberts

Kate closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, I could tell she’d seen a vision. “Not a tuxedo, exactly,” she said. “A man’s vintage suit, but one custom-made for your body. Very Marlene Dietrich.”

What I knew about contemporary fashion could fit on a penny, with room left over for something actually interesting, like a hot woman’s phone number in very tiny type, but I know my old movies. I nodded eagerly. Marlene in a suit, looking all hot and gender-bending, was my idea of the perfect evening look.

“There’s just one condition,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “The suit’s got to make its first appearance on a date with me. It just seems a shame to waste it on a crowd that won’t fully appreciate it—or the butch wearing it.”

“The Sweetheart of Sigma Queer” by Simon Sheppard

“That was it. I didn’t see Bret again before I left for winter break. I figured that he’d gotten himself some pussy and forgotten about me. But only a few days after I got back to campus, he came over to me, looking a little shy—which on him looked just plain strange—and said, ‘Want to go for a pizza or something? My treat.’ And so he started using me on a regular basis, in my room when Tony was gone, his room when his roommate was out. Once I even sucked him off in the men’s room at the library, but without the lingerie it wasn’t as good. Tony kept fucking my face, too, I guess when he couldn’t get otherwise laid, but it was Bret I really wanted. It wasn’t because of who he was, really, it wasn’t even his looks. It was because of, well, me. I needed him. I wanted to be pretty for him. I wanted to be pretty so someone would love me.”

He looked in my eyes with an expression so pure, so vulnerable that it made me ache. It made me want to come. It made me want to screw him.

“Finally, one night, it happened. Tony was spending the night at his latest girlfriend’s house, so I invited Bret over. He brought a fifth of Cuervo and a teddy, garters, and stockings. ‘I want you to look like a whore,’ he said, then took a big gulp from the bottle.

Without hesitation Jacqueline threw her arms around my neck, showing me how everything about her was deliciously soft—the crush of her breasts against mine, the tickle of her angora sweater, even the fuzzy smell of peaches on her fingers. I realized I was going to enjoy fucking her for more than just the ironic revenge of it and in the same instant she realized she was attracted to me. I could tell by of the way she instinctively touched the back of my neck then quickly stiffened.

I don’t know what it was Jacqueline liked about me—the hair, the cologne, the lean press of my bones or something else altogether. Maybe something perverse like curiosity of where her lover had been. All I know is that hug marked the beginning of months of seduction. Months of standing too close, of double entendre, of private jokes. I remember once being inches away from her in the storeroom. Hemmed in by books—yes—though mostly that close just because we wanted to be. Jacqueline had her face turned up to me and her lips parted, ready to be kissed. I leaned in like I was going to oblige her and then I quickly turned away. My mouth was watering for her, too, but I knew it was better this way. To make her wait until wanting crushed her guilt, made her reckless. And it was another month before she was that hopelessly ensnared and an opportunity arose—dished up in fact by Tori, who forgot to pick her up one night.

My breath caught. Each time Logan’s hand pumped my cock, he pressed the base of the toy back against my clit. And each time I felt that connection, I thought I would climax. He didn’t stop. He didn’t turn or say a word. He kept going, pausing only to add a bit more spit to his palm, so that I felt he was greasing me.Caleb froze. I’m sure something flippant was on the tip of his tongue, but maybe he caught a look at Logan’s face, and that stopped him. He was able to shut the door behind him, and then he stood totally still, and I knew he was waiting for instructions.

“You’re going to come for me, boy?” Logan murmured, crooning to me, but teasing somehow. Taunting me for dressing like this in the first place. He’d told me to buy an outfit for Cal. He hadn’t told me to dress up myself.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then come.”

My knees would have buckled if Logan hadn’t used one hand to pin my shoulder against the wall, holding me in place easily as the shudders worked through me. The orgasm was almost frighteningly intense. Embarrassingly so, as I was being watched fiercely by the two men in my life. And then it was over, and Logan let me go, and I hiked up my jeans and sank down to the floor, letting the wall support me now.

“Beefeater” by Lisabet Sarai

This gaudy finery doesn't interest me. I'm focused on the undress uniform, the sea blue tunic and trousers with the ruby-red piping spelling out ER, Elizabeth Regina, across the chest. The jaunty hat with its circular brim. It's a chilly October night, and my uncle must be wearing the winter weight uniform. The summer uniform is wool too, but light, almost like linen. I reach out a finger and trace the bright trim around the cuff. It feels as though someone is trailing his fingers through the folds of my cunt.

Finally, impatient, I pull my jersey over my head and toss it on the floor, then undo my zip and step out of the skirt. Phil releases an appreciative wolf whistle. I hardly notice. I reach for the tunic, pull it from the hanger, slip my arms into the sleeves, fasten it up to my neck. It's loose, of course. Every time I move, the finely knit fabric brushes over my swollen nipples, fanning the smoldering heat in my cunt into new flame. The cuffs fit snugly. On the shelf I find a pair of spotless white gloves. I pull them on, then consider the trousers.

My cunt is soaked, dripping with desire. In my fantasies, I'm always bent over, my Beefeater's trousers pulled down to bare my bottom to the men waiting behind me. Geoff's pants are way too long, though. Plus if I bring them anywhere near my raunchy wet pussy, they'll be soaked and stained by my juices, and possibly spoiled forever.

That thought by itself almost makes me come. But I cling to a shred of common sense and pass the trousers by. Instead, I reach up to the shelf and pick up the hat. I plant it on top of my tangled red-brown curls. My hair's so thick that it's a perfect fit.

My book, out in February 2008 from Cleis Press. It's all done on my end, so far (authors, please don't ask me the status, I'll let you know as soon as I know!), just waiting to get the good word ont he manuscript. And working on finishing my novel and some freelancey goodness and looking forward to the long weekend. I am waiting to get the cover for Yes, Sir, but I think this one deserves postcards again and, dare I say, may be even hotter than the cover for She's on Top. Speaking of which, if anyone in the U.S. didn't get a She's on Top postcard and would like one, email me at rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com with "postcard" in the subject line and your mailing address, and if you know of any BDSM groups/clubs/etc. that might like some, let me know who to contact - I still have thousands via the bargain of 1-800-POSTCARDS.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

As well as my spanking erotica anthology, but that can wait. If you have any rubber sex erotica (or latex or PVC) or want to write some, now's the time. I can give you until Tuesday, September 4th at 8 am (extending the deadline by a few days). Send any queries (though all questions should be answered by what's below) to rubbersex at gmail.com - this may or may not be the final cover, I'm waiting to hear, just thought it might entice you. I also highly recommend Christine Kessler's Pervy Girls. Crazy hot largely latex and other kinky fashion photography, and not a too-huge hardcover, but a more petite, portable photo book.

Rubber SexEdited by Rachel Kramer BusselTo be published by Cleis Press, Spring 2008

Rubber, latex and PVC all cling to the skin and have the power to make their wearers feel sensual, sexy, and aroused. I want to hear about men and women encased in the kinds of garments that leave nothing to the imagination, that make them feel sexier than if they were naked. Rubber Sex will include everything from rubber and latex fetishists to those who fall for a special outfit, to roleplaying in a sexy nurse’s outfit. These stories should focus on the look and feel of these materials, fetishizing them to the fullest, while also including characterization, plot, and hot sex. Latex/rubber/PVC items can include dresses, skirts, tops, corsets, pants, stockings, gloves, hoods, underwear, jackets, briefs, etc. I’m looking for a wide array of settings, scenarios, and use of rubber/latex/PVC; please keep this in mind as my primarily goal is to include hot stories that present a range of sexual practices and events (meaning not every story can be about a woman in a beautiful latex dress). Not everyone in the story needs to be wearing rubber/latex/PVC; incorporate them as best suits the story. This book will be primarily heterosexual with some lesbian/gay/bi content included. All characters must be over 18; no incest or bestiality. Sensual, playful, humorous, and kinky are all good things to aim for. For examples of the kinds of stories I like, see Caught Looking, Ultimate Undies, Sexiest Soles, and Secret Slaves.

Payment: Contributors will receive $50/story and 2 copies of the anthology on publication.

How to submit: Send double spaced Times New Roman 12 point font Word document OR RTF of 2,000-4,000 word story along with your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), mailing address, and 50-75 word bio to rubbersex at gmail.com - make sure you indent at the start of each paragraph and do not add extra lines between paragraphs. Those who do not submit in this format and include this information will not be considered. Authors may submit ONE story only; do not send more than one! If you want to make sure I’ve received your submission, please state that in your cover letter. Send only the final version of your story; do NOT submit a draft or unfinished version only to later submit an updated version. If for some reason it is impossible to send your story as a Word document or RTF attachment, please paste it into the body of your email. submission.

You can expect to hear from me by November 2007 at the latest. Any questions about this anthology should be sent to rubbersex at gmail.com

I can't guarantee Josh Kilmer-Purcell groping Jessica Cutler, but I can guarantee a hot, crazy, wild night (and Jessica Cutler in the house). September 20th, BEST OF In The Flesh, details here or to the left. I will be sharing something salacious. But of course.

Wendy Spero is deceptively tiny. You go to hug her and you feel like you could crush her. She is wearing sparkles on her eyelids and a sparkly barrette in her hair and a pretty red dress and pretty shoes. She had gorgeous cupcakes at her wedding. She is like a little kid crossed with a very wise adult/big sister. I fear I have physically maimed her when I tell her I heard that FAO Schwartz in New York closed (I was wrong). I have been immensely impressed with her since her book, Microthrills, made me cry, and even more so last November when she drove to pick me up in Sherman Oaks (she, like me, is petrified of driving, but unlike me, she does it). We go for Japanese food and talk about writing.

The look on her face brooks no argument: You must reread Bird by Bird. You have to. We go to Yolato for me, then Tasti D-Lite for her. She schools me on the firmness of Tasti and then gets chocolate in a cup, but eats it like a cone. We go to Borders, and I ask for her book, and learn that it was an uphill battle to not get it stocked in humor (it is stocked in humor, but it’s SO much more than that). We go to get me another copy of Bird by Bird, because who knows where mine is. “Oh, you should totally read Writing Down the Bones, I tell her, pulling out one of the tiny pocket-sized Shambhala editions.

Wendy tells me she read Bird by Bird several times while writing her book. “It’ll help. She talks about everything you’re talking about. You have to read it.” I literally feel like I have no choice, but I kindof like that. Wendy tells me to let her know how it goes. When I check my email, there is an assignment waiting for me. I would say as if from G-d, but that’s too grand even for me. It is a sign though, of many things. It’s an assignment from someone I owed an email of apology to, for flaking, a long list in a long line of apologies owed. But it’s not asking about that. It’s new, and the assignment is about renewal. About everything I need to be doing and am not. Supposedly, I’m an “expert.” Oh, do go on and make me laugh harder than any comedian. I’m an “expert” in being clueless about dating. I’m an “expert” in misreading signals and people. I’m an “expert” in agreeing with what everyone else wants, in liking people back simply because they like me. I’m an “expert” in seeing what I want to see, rather than the plain ugly truth right in front of my face. But you know what? I’m broke and I need the cash and maybe I can just fake it till I make it, imagine I were someone else and give her the advice I clearly need beaten into my head by force. Oh-so-appropriate. I reply that I have plenty of ideas, from personal and professional experience.

I tuck the Anne Lamott book into my purse and reread those first pages on the subway, where I go hear about martial arts and conflict and war and a Columbian drug called scopolomine. I stand against the wall and try to keep my shoulders straight and balance in my heels. I note, as dispassionately as I can, which is not much, that my stomach does that complete roller coast somersault when I see him out of the corner of my eye. I write notes that I pretend are for my novel: “like I could faint or vomit⎯or both.” For a second. But we don’t do that being in the same room together thing anymore. It’s funny because he’s there anyway, even when he’s not. The subject matter has his name written all over it, and I know that. But I was invited and want to learn things that have nada to do with sex. I’m bored with the usual suspects and fear being stuck like quicksand in the pink ghetto, dying there and never being able to escape. I marvel at the fearlessness not of the VBS people to fly all over the world, to Columbia and Baghdad and China, but to keep on asking, “What’s next? What’s new? What can I do/bring forth into the world?” I used to do that, on a smaller scale, maybe. Or maybe I never did. But now I feel like I never do.

And now I’m asked to give advice and I have to step outside myself and ask what advice I need. How to propel myself not just into a new year, but a new mindset, a new way of doing things because the old way isn’t working. That’s a broader question but I know it’s all connected. Wendy, Anne Lamott, my book, this assignment, showing up. Bringing an open mind, as we were asked. And I hope, or at least I strive, to have an open mind. I am like a sponge, and I wonder if I’ve been absorbing the right things. Hearing the martial arts guy talk about the various benefits of his style of fighting (he called martial arts “human living sculpture”), I couldn’t help but be reminded of Crossfit. Sticking it out there, physically, financially, just doing it, when it feels good and when it doesn’t, means something, even when I don’t want to, even when I still feel too big and fat and weak. I think it’s good for me to hit rock bottom sometimes, to go so low that I almost can’t go any lower (though of course, you always can). To remember that one day at a time means that tomorrow is literally a new day and a new chance to make amends, to move forward. Baby steps, in high heels.

And inspiration in the form of people getting out there and doing it, not sitting around worrying about what ifs (watch more of the "Columbian Devil's Breath" series at Vbs.tv:

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

I'm thrilled and totally surprised (cause they weren't on my press list, though clearly they were on someone's, but now will permanently be on my list!) with this review Volume 41 No. 8 of Forum UK. Not just because it's positive, but because it gets the whole point of the books. Now, you know, just to get crazy dragging their heels Ingram and Amazon to, I don't know, STOCK my books. That's a novel concept, I know, making money and all but geez. Sorry to vent, I know my publisher is working on it, but it really horrifies me that books are available, in warehouses, and according to Amazon they're not, which is costing me very real dollars in lost sales. I know there's nothing I can do, but it doesn't stop me from checking and checking and checking. So forget Amazon; buy books directly from Cleis Press, your local book or sex toy store (ask for the titles), or Bn.com, where He's on Top ships within 24 hours.

Explorations of dominants and their relationships with those who submit to them are also on display in He's On Top and She's On Top. However, these two anthologies are beasts of a more subtle breed altogether. Unlike Enthralled, where the dominant character punishes her subs because she despises them and sees them as something less than human, the tops here do it because they are with someone who understands, trusts and (more often than not) loves them.

He's On Top features such intriguing scenarios as a young top being put through his paces in a club by an older bottom who knows which of them is really controlling the scene (Thomas S. Roche's Schoolgirl And Angel) and a mster demonstrating his training technique over the phone to persuade another woman she should avail herself of his ervices (Mackenzie Cross' A Good Reference). It also, bravely, tackles the subject of a couple rekindling their BDSM relationship after her treatment for breasts cancer (Shanna Germain's The Sun Is An Ordinary Star).

She's On Top has the dommes taking centre stage, and offers up such treasts as Tara Alton's Pinch, where a woman has a surprisingly kinky encounter in her office lift, Noelle Keely's Ottoman Empress, in which the heroine discovers how satisfying it is to use her yoga-loving husband as a footstool and Kate Dominic's The Queening Chair, which can only be described as a cunnilingus apocalypse. Truly a pair of masterful anthologies.

Something that is a huge rarity, but I heart Jill Soloway,Jessi Klein, and Nina Hartley...and I think these issues are way more complicated than they seem. I would love a full report on this - someone? Meanwhile, here in New York, taxi driver/memoirist Melissa Plaut, who I interviewed in Penthouse recently, will be reading from her book HACK at 6th Avenue and 8th followed by a party at Happy Ending at 8.

Modern feminism has evolved to a place where we understand that we must align with ALL women, including working women and stay-at-home-moms and strippers and sex workers-- with the understanding that inside our still-patriarchal culture, our choices are often limited by the very lack of them.

But do we only love sex workers who make less than 25k before taxes a year? If Britney were a single mom who stripped every night and had a hard time getting childcare for her babies, would we have a lot more sympathy for her? Is it only the ginormous amount of money she makes that instead causes us to point to her and her ilk as the DOWNFALL of modern lady power?

Lady Party 911 will kick into high gear with an onstage incarnation of The Conversation, featuring comediennes Jessi Klein and Jessica Chaffin hosting a debate on the burning issue OBJECT calls "Punishing the Princesses: The Media’s Obsession With Condemning Paris, Lindsay and Britney." Their guests – porn queen/sex educator Nina Hartley; Jen Sincero, author of "The Straight Girl’s Guide to Sleeping With Chicks"; and neo-feminist philosopher Tracy McMillan – promise a spirited exchange. The other gals in the joint are encouraged to join in with theories and questions. After a performance by fashion-forward San Francisco dance-punk queens Von Iva and Yo Majesty will bring their hot booty-bass old-school jams all the way from Tampa, Fla.

Admission before 8:00 is $8.00; admission thereafter is $12.00.Tickets are available at the door or through TicketWeb.Lady Party 911 is open to revelers 18 and older.

Where?

The Echoplex1154 Glendale Blvd., between Park Ave. and Scott Ave., in Echo Park (no entry on Sunset Blvd.; valet parking will be available)

Why?

Because we need a fresh female forum that transcends the side-choosing women's politics of yore. Because music, comedy, speakers and activists encourage dialogue on issues like power and sexuality in a way that’s thought-provoking and entertaining.

The instructions for tonight's BIFOLD: CONFLCT event being put on by LVHRD are: "Bring an open mind." That and a pretty new Betsey Johnson dress, I've got.

I don't know what "Without conflict there can be no growth" means, but I'm gonna find out. If you're as mystified and curious as I am, come on out tonight. Aside from their dating event, which made me realize that singles/dating events are really not for me, I haven't been to any of LVHRD's very cool events (though, as I said, I would amateur strip for them). I'm copying their description of tonight's event:

Join LVHRD tonight for BIFOLD: CNFLCT as we step in front of the fists and behind the camera with host Anthony Lappé, Executive Editor of the Guerrilla News Network, to explore the disparate ways conflict influences the artistic narrative and impacts our growth as human beings.

Our presenters for the evening, Sambo martial arts expert Stephen Koepfer and VBS.tv correspondent Ryan Duffy, each offer a unique perspective on the way conflict has shaped the course of their professional careers as well as the potential conflict has to lead to world change through constructive debate.

Entries in the Veer Poster Competition will be on display at the venue tonight; voting for the winning entry will commence on the blog at LVHRD.ORG later this week.

Tickets for BIFOLD: CNFLCT are available at LVHRD.COM. We’ll see you tonight.

Mon 27th Aug, 07

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #95? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

Monday, August 27, 2007

VERY weird to have a group interview I'm part of up on a site I write for. Also the whole thing is kindof odd for me; I am in some sense trying to move away from memoir, and certainly have a love/hate relationship with blogging. But nevertheless, here's this interview at Memoirville with those of us in the new book Entangled Lives edited by Marilyn Jaye Lewis.

Do you tend to base fiction on real experiences or write erotic fiction and then make it come true?

Rachel: In my erotica, I often weave my own fantasies into the stories, but it’s not always verbatim. Another character might live out something I never would in real life, or I’ll alter things in a way that best fits the story. I don’t think I consciously write erotica and then try to “make it come true,” but I’m sure there’s an element of that in there somewhere. As much as I often try to separate the two, my writing and my self/my life are very tightly woven together.

Actually, I'm pretty psyched about fiction these days. Writing all kinds of stories that have nada to do with me, and the novel, which is clearly not about me (I've long since ceased to be a virgin), but I'm certainly in it, maybe just not in my protagonist (am working on my character sketches). I'm learning that I have to really live and breathe my characters, dream about them, make them as real as they can be in my head before trying to do so on the page. It's fun, but also challenging because, well, I want everyone to behave like me. That would be easy but would not make for a very good book. So bear with me. It's slowly but surely coalescing. And there's a hot scene in a strip club! That's all I can really tell you for now. There's a real freedom to make these people do whatever the hell I want, but that's also daunting and scary. I don't do well with too much freedom but I'm working with it and seeing what happens, and yes, maybe exorcising a few personal demons along the way.

Wilder was twenty-six when he found his true calling. Leaving a lucrative advertising career in New York, he got a job as an assistant first-grade teacher at a Santa Fe alternative school—and never looked back. Now he brings his unique perspective—as a teacher, parent, and former student—to a series of laugh-out-loud essays that show teaching at its most absurd…and most rewarding. With brutal candor he chronicles his own lively adventures in modern education, from navigating cutthroat kindergarten sign-ups to subbing for a class experiment gone wrong–and dares to tell about it.

He shares the surprising lessons he’s learned in the trenches of his profession, including how to bribe a four-year-old (his own) to stop swearing in a Lutheran preschool and the best way to teach moody teenagers…manage “helicopter” parents…and cope with bullies—whether of the school-yard, Internet, or parental kind. And he offers tough love for cheaters who log on to www.SchoolSucks.com, then puts to rest forever the question of why new teachers gain weight (hint: the free donuts don’t help).

A night and morning of hanging out with an almost 2-year-old, dishing with and trying to fix up one of my cousins, and sleeping on a super comfy couch has done wonders. Am trying not to think about the insanely busy week I have. One step at a time. Tonight is my first ever reading at McNally Robinson and I organized it so please come out! I'm reading a kindof outdated but not totally (still single, no longer a sex columnist) essay.

The popular media give us shoe shopaholics, ditzy desperados, and wannabe brides forever making cow eyes at The Bachelor. But what do single women have to say about their own lives? In the myth-busting tradition of anthologies like The Bitch in the House, the impressive roster of writers of Single State of the Union set the record straight about the experiences of single women in America. Rachel Kramer Bussel is a popular writer and teacher of erotica and the editor most recently of erotica anthologies Caught Looking and Crossdressing. Lynn Harris is the author of the smart New York mystery Death by Chick Lit. Judy McGuire is an advice columnist and author of How Not To Date.Susan Shapiro is the author of the memoirs Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Lighting Up and most recently Only As Good As Your Word. Join us for a discussion with these and other smart single (and formerly single) women that will give you a new perspective on the single state.

Also, fast approaching are the deadines for my 2008 Cleis books Rubber Sex (August 31st deadline) and Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica (September 30th). Any questions should about them should ONLY go to the email addresses listed in the calls (if you want an answer, that is).

And I'm guest blogging at Babeland next week, so if you have any questions or tips for me for that, send em to rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com with Babeland in the subject line!

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Wrote most of a little story for Booktour (still cleaning it up) at the neverending appointment that didn't happen today.

Cupcake blogger workout today at Crossfit. I don't know if I'm up for organizing another one, I think I need to severely halt my tendency to want to organize things and just be a follower and detached participant for a while. Even as my brain bubbles with ideas, I need to chill with that for a while. (But please do come to the reading I organized on Monday at McNally Robinson. It's a pretty swanky bookstore, they even sell cupcakes (and have WiFi from what I recall from the Jill Soloway reading). My own exuberance sometimes gets the best of me and it's not always pretty. I am waiting to finalize an October 14th reading from He's on Top/She's on Top in San Francisco (with Crossdressing and Best Sex Writing 2008 readings TBA in New York and probably a birthday spanking event November 10th in Philly), but that's different, and I have people helping me book those. That's work and all I need to do is log into Sallie Mae to remind myself that it's necessary. Plus I like these little trips, and have many people to see (and at least one to do) in San Francisco, not to mention cupcakes to eat. But all in good time. I have to get through August, then September, then...

September is almost here! I remember a few years ago I was like "I wish this year would be over already." It was 2003 and I worked at a job that made me cry, it was just awful (they took away my internet access, I couldn't wear sneakers, I got in trouble for "talking too loud," nepotism was rampant, my job was as a typist, not even a secretary) where everything was topsy turvy and it rotted my brain worse than watching television. It was just really bad all around. And K. was saying that we shouldn't wish time away, and it's true. Even then, when things felt so awful, all of a sudden, I was rescued from that. I don't want anyone but myself to rescue me now, but it's hard to just live in that state where you're constantly wishing you had someone else's life, reading blogs enviously, gorging on the details of grass that is such a vivid, brilliant, beautiful green, while yours might as well be brown and scorched and dead. That's what it feels like, anyway, just like I'm spinning in circles, with no direction. I have a feeling someday I'll look back on this, my crazy thirties, or at least the early years, and either laugh heartily or have plenty of material for fiction.

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who contacted me. I don't really know what to say...am I okay? Ish. I'm okay-ish, and I've come to accept that sometimes that's the best you can do. Definitely a lot of dropping my head in my hands when things just seem insurmountable and I'm just trying to work on everything one step at a time. I think the problem is I've set myself up with some pretty big stuff to tackle and I'm a control freak and perfectionist so have trouble asking for help, even when it's offered, and I don't think anyone can really help you fix the internal things, the stuff, for lack of a better word at the moment.

I'll figure it out and things are all proceeding forward; I guess sometimes I feel like they're proceeding forward without me and I'm stuck trying to stay afloat. That's probably a victory in itself, staying afloat, and I should remember that. So I will be okay. Better than okay, hopefully. Right now just not so much, but I'm working on it all, just have to learn not to try to work on it all, all at once.

I'm reminded, too, that my use of rock bottom, well, plenty of people, including the woman who I associate the term with, have been through a lot worse than I'm dealing with. I don't think that thought ever really makes people feel better, because we all have our own trials, but I am thankful for what I do have and one word, one step, one day at a time, I'll get out of the messes I've made. Speaking of kickass, strong woman, a long time ago, in what always feels a little bit like a life someone else lived, aka 2003, the amazing Mimi Ferraro sang "Fighter" by Christina Aguilera at karaoke. Indeed. Come to think of it, the people I most admire are the fighters, the works in progress, the ones who looked at their lives and didn't like what they saw and changed things. I said to someone I care about, who I really never thought I'd be saying it to, that I was proud of him for just that, and I am. I'm not ever someone who wants to see people living down to their worst selves, including me, and I fear that of late I have. That I've spent the last year or two coasting along, rising to some challenges, yes, working a lot, on my self and "work," but ultimately staying stuck in too many ways and a lot of that lack has caught up with me, and maybe is a good learning process for me, of how to structure my life, of who exactly I do or don't want to be. I hope I can learn something from it, anyway.

I was going to post about how fucked up Ingram is. You know, the book distributor who listed my book He's on Top as publisher cancelled, so now Amazon hasn't stocked it for over a week and sales have plumetted, very real dollars that I have lost and can't afford to lose. It makes me feel stupid for being excited that we sold out our first printing, for being silly enough to buy blogads, for thinking that, like, being at the top of their bestseller list would mean, like, they'd stock my book. I know it's not personal, it's just frustrating to not be able to do a thing.

But that's really a side issue, a way of me diverting my energy from the task at hand. Serenity prayer and all, but I think it's way too easy to want to change the things we cannot change, because then the world is your oyster. If only...becomes a fantasy way of remaking things with no practical application. So I try to let it go and do something that actually matters. I took the night off after the Bluestockings reading on Thursday, went home and watched Weeds and realized how much guilt I carry around just for doing something as simple as that. I need to catch up, desperately, but that time away made my mind race with ideas, made me think things were going to be okay. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't, I can't say and don't know and don't have the hubris to predict. I would like to hope they couldn't be worse than this week that just passed, but who really knows. Today is a big day that will tell me a lot and getting through it will be its own triumph.

I think I’m always waiting to hit rock bottom. I like it there, on some level. Maybe not consciously, but I’m so used to it, and sometimes I feel like the only way to succeed, or maybe even survive, is to sink lower and lower until there’s nowhere lower to go. Of course, there is always somewhere lower to go, but I have my own breaking points, I suppose. There’s a reason I’m writing a story for one of my books called “The Depths of Despair.” I know this is not the right way to live, I know I’m mistreating my mind, my body. Yet I can’t seem to help it. I think that fear of failure and fear of success start to trump even the merest step toward getting better. Yet I don’t want a year to go by and be stuck in the same sad, pathetic place. I don’t even want a week or a month to go by. I have to find a way to kick my own ass, a way different from anything I’ve tried before. Because my world is falling apart, crumbling as if before my eyes and I watch in slow motion, drag out the minutes by not sleeping, so I have more time to see it. I almost wish I were a cutter, or were drinking or doing drugs or something to make it not so raw, so visible. I guess the only thing I can have faith in is that as much as I like the comfort zone of rock bottom, as much as failure is so fucking seductive, I do somehow manage to escape at the last minute, a magic trick even I don’t know how I’ve pulled off. Instead it's just tears and that hollow feeling that I keep trying to find some healthy way to fill, cheating with Yolato that helps in the instant but doesn't quite do the trick. I realize just how long it's been there, the chicanery and falsehoods I've let myself tell myself to stave it off. What was all of 2006 except an exercise in that? I'm going to San Francisco in October to read a story about that, in fact. It's paradoxical in that I know what I most need is to be alone, I'm not so fit for the social niceties of late.

This week everything came crashing down and I literally lost it. I think losing it in public brings things home a little more clearly. Not just the crying, but the sense that it never stops, that it's out of my control, that my insides are leaking out, all over the sidewalk, the drugstore, the gym. And part of me wishes I could hide away and never emerge, never have to lose it in public quite like that, so starkly, so clearly saying, This girl is not okay. At the same time, I know that would be its own not so kind death and that if I ever really want to live out my dreams, ever want to birth another person, let alone my own potential, I have to live through this one possibly agonizing day at a time, and appreciate the little things, because they are there, if I look closely enough. I guess all I can expect, ever, is to learn from my mistakes. I'm a stubborn creature of habit and seem to like to make the same ones over and over again, but I am trying, because I think as much as rock bottom fits me like a glove, there's an optimism there, maybe smiling through the tears, that fits me even better, that fits me like a clingy, low-cut dress and high heels, that molds itself to make me feel beautiful, make me feel me. Perhaps thats how I need to think of it, and adapt myself, adjust, rearrange, cater to not the rock bottom, but the sliver of a smile right above it.

Well, this morning I was able to prove to myself what a colossal failure I am at even the simplest of tasks. Go me. I deserve any bad news I get, for sure.

Friday, August 24, 2007

I have never joined a porn site before but think I'm going to join FootFemme.com to see the rest of Audacia Ray's cupcake-smashing set of 890+ photos. HOTNESS! Alo check out her Flickr page for other luscious photos.

p.s. If I'd been there, I would totally have licked the frosting off Audacia's feet! And I don't even really have a foot fetish, but every once in a while...pretty feet I can dig. Pretty feet smeared in frosting = irresistible.

Tomorrow, Saturday August 25th, we're doing a small private all-women's session at Crossfit NYC in Midtown. If you're a female reader of this blog and want to join us, the fee is $25, 2 pm - 3 pm, but you HAVE TO EMAIL ME to get in b/c space is limited. Email rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com with "Crossfit" in the subject line if you want to come; ideally, you're someone I already know, if not, just tell me your name and show up at 1:45 tomorrow. Should be lots of fun! Make sure you email me by 10 pm tonight (Friday).

You can also always reach Allison at allison at crossfitny.com to find out more about private sessions. Your first group Elements class at Crossfit is free (NOT tomorrow's special private class).

Saturday, August 25th @ 7PM  FreeReading from Iridescence, Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen Street, NYCJoin us for a very special reading of Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotic. Allow this vibrant group of new and legendary erotica writers, including editor Jolie du Pre, Sofia Quintero, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Tawanna Sullivan, to tease and entice you with excerpts from this sizzling anthology.

The popular media give us shoe shopaholics, ditzy desperados, and wannabe brides forever making cow eyes at The Bachelor. But what do single women have to say about their own lives? In the myth-busting tradition of anthologies like The Bitch in the House, the impressive roster of writers of Single State of the Union set the record straight about the experiences of single women in America. Rachel Kramer Bussel is a popular writer and teacher of erotica and the editor most recently of erotica anthologies Caught Looking and Crossdressing. Lynn Harris is the author of the smart New York mystery Death by Chick Lit. Judy McGuire is an advice columnist and author of How Not To Date.Susan Shapiro is the author of the memoirs Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Lighting Up and most recently Only As Good As Your Word. Join us for a discussion with these and other smart single (and formerly single) women that will give you a new perspective on the single state.

Polyamory is big these days. There’s Cunning Minx’s fabulous Poly Weekly podcast, Big Love, and three upcoming books about it (in addition to the others on the topic, like Diana Cage’s Threeways: Fulfill Your Ultimate Fantasy, which I was quoted in)!

Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up comes out this fall from Cleis Press, I know Virginia Vitzthum is working on one, and now Jenny Block is writing Open for Seal Press, due out in May 2008. This is in addition to the two books about threesomes coming out (love that Amazon is advertising them together, in case, like, one book on the topic is not enough!), the covers of which I’ll include below, just for fun:

Of course, if you haven’t already read The Ethical Slut, stop reading this blog and go do so if you’re at all interested in poly. It’s a classic.

Jenny Block (she wrote "Portrait of an Open Marriage" last year for Tango) asked me to pass along this call for interviewees. This is is all the info I have; contact Jenny if you’re interested. She would like to talk to “people in open marriages or other open committed relationships.” You can be quoted anonymously.

The book is called Open and is due out in May 2008. I'll email a series of questions to anyone interested and ask that they answer as many as they are comfortable answering. Then I will follow-up with anyone I want/need more info from. Jenny Block, myopenbook@yahoo.com

As for me, never say never, but I think my poly days are over. I’m beyond ready to settle down. I can’t even say what my “ideal” would be because it depends on whoever I settle down with, and what they want. I think I have a poly soul but am highly skeptical I can even find a single person to partner/procreate with, let alone multiples and would rather try to be practical for once in my life than…idealistic. That’s a story for another day, though. But since I am working pretty much 24/7, it’s a non-issue. I’ll go back to my “I just get laid when I’m not in New York” mode. Really, though, who knows? Certainly not I.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Okay, she's almost naked, but the winkiness, and the stats written strategically across her body, are so worth watching. I'm also apparently the last person to see this, it having been viewed over 2.5 million times! Also check out www.kellemarie.com (via Good Vibes)

Also, still confirming, but looks like I just may be reading at Litquake and taking a little October SF trip, and I'm finalizig details for a class/workshop on spanking. Namely, birthday spanking, on my 32nd birthday, November 10th, in Philadelphia as part of a big erotic arts event. Details TK.

SEPT 7, 7-9PM at PASSIONALEROTIC FOOT BATHINGWith Veronica BoundLearn therapeutic and sensual ways to please your lovers' peds using natural (and tasty) ingredients. Partners will learn to create a comfortably warm bath and to peform rubs, scrubs and worship that will honor the feet they seek to pamper.Wear comfortable clothing, as this class is interactive!$35 per person, $60/kissing couple

Pardon the lack of updates. I am averaging maybe four hours of sleep a night as I work on my novel, make inroads on other writing, and generally manage the chaos. If only it were as easy as No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn. It's more like no sleep 'till September.

More insomniac posting and linkage coming soon. For now I can share two very pretty book covers. Sex and Candy is out next month from Pretty Things Press (and is also on MySpace). Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women is out from Seal Press in February and I want to lick the cover. It's so hot! I had to ask my editor, "Is it okay to have a nipple on the cover?" She assured me it is. And clearly the whole "You can't judge a book by its cover?" So. Not. True.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Sex in the Public Square party was wonderful, and I must confess, much more so than I’d expected. Sometimes, in spaces like that, I feel a little overwhelmed. Sex is everywhere but the mystique, the beauty, the complexity vanishes a little. At least, that potential is there. I worry that it’s a very closed atmosphere, that it’s too incrowded. It’s not that I don’t support the efforts to take sex out of the closet in full, I just know that there’s always more to the story. That plenty of people who are in small towns, who would never in a million years want to come to such an event, are fucking the system, if you will, the sexual status quo. I don’t think we all have to “out there,” though I think we have much to do to make people feel comfortable with their own sexuality, to not feel that it has to be fit into some little box called straight or monogamous if they don’t want it to be. But those aren’t the only issues; there are a seemingly infinite number of assumptions we make about what “men” and “women” should want, do want.

It’s why I find most sexual labels so confining; so many of us have way more going on in our fantasies. Or, to put it bluntly, I don’t want sex, as a topic, as something to be dissected, to be the sole domain of, say, the people who were at that party. The sexerati, if you will. I don’t want it to be this insider’s club because to me sex is one of the most universal acts around. Maybe next to eating. We may not all fuck or fantasies or feed ourselves the same way, but we all can relate to the act of doing it, wanting it. Or not; I know not everyone cares about sex, or food, the way I do, but for the most part, I think they are topics that people can at least bring an opinion to the table.

Sex is both very, very public, and very, very private, and I think those of us who have made some of the publicness part of our career walk a very, very tricky line. As I tried to explain to someone after my reading, which I cut a tiny bit short cause I was shaking with nerves, I can write anything on the page. I don’t censor myself, even though once in a while I use a pseudonym (as I did when posing for Thatstrangegirl.com back in the day and occasionally now when writing particularly stories), but that’s very different than standing up in front of people, live, and reading something you know will turn at least some of them on. I have mixed feelings about that because, well, it’s not like I personally want to sleep with everyone, or even anyone, in those rooms. My personal sex life is both pretty personal and pretty dead boring these days, with the occasional interesting story, though one that usually fades rather quickly back to the minutiae of daily life and deadlines.

Yet Veronica Vera’s piece, about both posing for Robert Mapplethorpe and her own sexual awakening, moved me so much. She talked about becoming “Veronica” rather than “Mary Veronica,” about being a whore for art, about this freedom that permeated her life and those around her during that time. She reads with such passion and enthusiasm; she’s almost winking at us, and yet she’s not. Within her story were so many ideas about sex, money, art, freedom, power, gender. It wasn’t as simple as “I like to take my clothes off for the camera.” It was about what that meant to her, about what it meant to engage with gay men as a woman, what it meant to barter with bodies, about commerce and art, about self-discovery. I just interviewed Vanessa del Rio, a colleague and friend of Veronica’s, for Penthouse, and she was similarly inspiring and open and brave. But by that I don’t mean that I only admire those who take their clothes off or have kinky sex or participate in orgies. That’s what I mean about the potential dangers of being too much of an in group. I think everyone has sex stories and given the tiniest opening, will share them freely. After the party and dinner with Lux and Audacia, I joined some of the post-Happy Corp. comics crowd and was almost immediately drawn into a pretty avid discussion about ass men vs. breast men, one night stands, standards of attractiveness for men and women, and good sex vs. bad sex. It was just as powerful and enlightening as any discussion I’d had earlier in the night, but with people who’ve probably never heard or used or care to use the term “sex positive.” My point is simply that sex is not an in crowd affair. It’s one of the most universal acts around, one that I think we all have more common ground with one another than is often recognized.

I think what is sometimes missing, not Friday necessarily, but sometimes, is the political element to all this. I don’t think all sex is necessarily political, or at least, is internalized as such or has to be every minute of the day. There’s a way of veering too far down that road that takes some of the pure delight in sex away. But digging around a bit on Veronica, I found this 2005 story about an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David tries on bras at a Victoria’s Secret, which Vera applauds, then is told by VS that their official policy allows men in the dressing rooms. They back off, then admit that this is the case. You can also see the stunning photo Marty and Veronica by Robert Mapplethorpe that Veronica described and displayed on Friday (if this doesn’t load, click to page 12 of Rebecca Schneider’s The Explicit Body in Performance.

What I want and hope to do with my writing, if anything (I really don't hope for anything beyond the words coming out to my and my editors' satisfaction most of the time, I think to ask or expect more than that is a bit hubristic on my end), is to create more openness, more discussion, and less cultural expectations when it comes to sex, whether that's how much or how little you're having, who you're having it with, what turns you on and off, etc. I feel like a lot of people are looking for other people to validate their sexual desires or actions (or those of their partners'), and I do it too, because I think I’m such a voyeur when it comes to sex it’s not even funny. Not so much literally; I don’t get that into group sex scenes or sex parties, and am often left kinda bored and antsy, feeling prudish because I’m more likely to be huddled in a corner talking about books or board games or gossip. I like to watch at times but even more I like to listen. I like to get inside people’s heads, find out all the things they think about sex, especially the things they might not otherwise share. One of my biggest pet peeves with people I’ve slept with is when they can’t open up on that level; to me that makes the physical almost not even worth it, because it feels like there are two things going on at once, their actions and their thoughts, and I don’t feel close to them unless I have both. And those kinds of conversations, the ones that start with some really mundane topic and morph into, say, boys who don’t come from blowjobs (I had this discussion about three times in one week), make me wish I had a column to further dissect them, but still make me grateful to be part of them, because I learn so much just from hearing people’s stories. I think it’s so easy, for me anyway, to feel like a sexual freak, to feel like I want too much or not enough, to feel like I’m abnormal in a dozen different ways, so the minute I start sharing those stories, I feel better. And I guess going back to my original point, that’s one of the goals of a site like Sex in the Public Square. I just wish sex and public were not such stigmatized concepts, so easy to judge and skewer, from both sides, because I think there’s also this idea that if you’re a “public”ly sexual person, you are all kinds of things: slutty, non-monogamous, kinky, etc. I may or may not be those things, certainly have been at various points in my life, but it’s the assumptions that make me flinch. Because I try to be nonjudgmental and not assume things about people, but I can safely say that when people make snap judgments about me, I’m much more inclined to judge them right back as not even worth my time. Thankfully, most people I come across, are not like that. They can absorb the idea that we aren’t all one thing or another. That sex is a part of our lives, not necessarily all of it (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

On that note, and hopefully this is coherent cause sleep has kindof evaded me the last week, I must get back to writing about my lovably slutty virgin Grace, the heroine of my novel Everything But…, which I hope you will get to read next summer. If I could inject or snort or swallow or otherwise imbed via osmosis this 43 Folders post on hacking your way through writer's block, I totally would. In the meantime, it's just, um, typing and word counting and trying to use the moments of inspiration I do have to make it all come together.